Influence of a skin status on the light interaction with dermis

We present experimental evidence that the parameters of green light remitted from a human tissue in-vivo strongly depend on skin contact status. In case when the skin is free of any contact, simultaneous recording of imaging photoplethysmogram (iPPG) and electrocardiogram revealed that contactless iPPG fails in correct estimates of the heart rate in almost half of the cases. Meanwhile, the number of successful correlations between ECG and iPPG is significantly increased when the skin is in contact with a glass plate. These observations are in line with the recently proposed model in which pulsatile arteries deform the connective-tissue components of the dermis thus resulting in temporal modulation of the capillary density interacting with slightly penetrating light.